by David Ryker
“So are you, Red Hand.”
Kelch made to slap the man but held himself. Loreto nodded approvingly.
“We ain’t gonna snitch!” shouted one of the scavengers and the others yelled in agreement.
“I don’t want you to snitch,” Loreto told them, adjusting himself in his seat. “I do want to know how you’re keeping in touch with your bosses.”
“What? We ain’t got no bosses. We’re free. No pips!”
Loreto looked at their bare necks, covered in tattoos and shearling collars. He didn’t have time to scan them all. He could leave that to the local authorities. If they didn’t have pips, then they’d be in big trouble. But he didn’t have time for such petty arguments.
“No one goes out on a mission,” he told them. “Not all the way out to the Pale. Not unless they already have a buyer. Who backed you? You must be in contact with them.”
Anyone who could afford to send a team all the way out here would be on Earth, Loreto knew. Which meant that the scavengers were in contact with Earth. If they could keep in touch, then maybe he could steal their comms link and get through to the Senate.
“Who’s your contact?”
Angry, silent stares. Kelch hit another scavenger.
“Tell him, scavvie!”
“Kelch!” Loreto shouted. “Stop it. Please.”
He was too tired to deal with this. But the hangar man’s efforts were working. Beating a bound man, though, Loreto thought. That’s not me. We can’t do that. But there’s so much at stake.
“Who’s your contact? How are you communicating? Someone on Inca?”
They would never give up their sources easily. This was children’s work. Nothing the Fleet should be handling. Not right now. But it’s exactly what I’ve been doing for twenty years, Loreto knew. With no wars to fight, he’d turned into a policeman. The long arm of the Federation, beating down any trouble on the edge of the Pale. The scavengers knew this, it was why they hated him, why they’d dredged up that old nickname from his past and polished it off and given it to him. He was the first Red Hand since Rother, that was how they knew him. Maybe I can use that, he thought.
“You know who I am,” he said quietly.
They mumbled.
“Say it.”
They mumbled again.
“Louder.”
They swallowed their words, grunting and chewing.
“Louder!”
“Red Hand Loreto!” one of the women broke ranks and shouted. “We know you!”
The others strained against their bonds and told her to hush. Kelch had tied them tight. Loreto stood up and walked around to the girl. The youngest of them all. He looked at her.
“And you know why they call me Red Hand?”
“Because you have blood all over your hands. Because you murder and kill. Because you hate anyone who isn’t from Earth!”
Lies, Loreto knew. His family’s past mixed together with myth and rumor, spread by people he’d placed under arrest and by rebels he’d helped to quell on the Senate’s behalf. Too many lies. But in situations like this, the lies could help.
“So what do you think will happen to you if you don’t do what I want?”
All her righteous anger faded. They were nervous. He decided to press them harder.
“Kelch,” he said. “Maybe show them a little of the First Fleet’s fury.”
The hangar man cackled and cracked his knuckles. He waddled across to the girl and drew back his hand and, pausing, blew her a kiss. He swung.
“Sala Pym!” she shouted and Loreto caught Kelch’s hand in the air and held it dead.
The scavengers shouted and tossed against their bindings but it was too late. Sala Pym, Loreto thought. It had to be her. A seedy figure woven into the very rotten fabric of Inca itself. Well, I guess that’s where we’re going next, Loreto thought. If these idiots can use Sala Pym to communicate with Earth, then I can, too. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He turned to Kelch.
“Put them into the brig,” he said. “Unharmed. You hear me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Unharmed, Kelch.”
Repeated, the order fixed itself in the man’s mind and a sad expression crossed his withered face.
“Then get a message to Hertz.” Loreto turned to face the hangar door. “Tell him to set a course for Inca, quick as possible.”
“You ain’t going up there yourself, Admiral?”
Loreto couldn’t face the bridge. He had to sleep, for the sake of the galaxy.
“Just pass on the orders, Kelch. Get it done.”
The man nodded and tumbled off into the hangar.
“And Kelch,” Loreto called. The man turned.
“Unharmed, remember.”
He didn’t wait to see the man wince in annoyance. Loreto headed for his quarters to sleep and dream of peace.
24
Cavs
Old man playing stupid games, thought Cavs. Ten hours travelling through three systems and two trace gates had not improved his disposition. Even though they made record time, he’d retired to quarters and stolen some sleep. As they docked in orbit above Inca and boarded the shuttle, Loreto refused to look him in the eye. He doesn’t trust me to look after the Vela.
Not that the ship would last much longer. Every rivet vibrated as they’d travelled, bursting at the seams with alien tech. Loreto had ruined his own goddamn vessel by letting those Exiles in.
For the first time, Cavs wanted a transfer. It was too late to join Fletcher’s fleet, but he was questioning the difference between a dead CO and one he couldn’t respect. They didn’t seem worlds apart anymore.
The shuttle glided down through the thin Inca atmosphere and everyone was quiet. Most of them hadn’t slept, despite Hertz’s orders. Cavs looked across to Loreto, talking into Cele’s ear. He’s playing favorites, he thought. She got to go to the Exile ship, he didn’t dress her down in front of the crew. He thought about Vanis, Day, and Rucker. Those were the people he could really trust.
Don’t trust him too much, Cavs wanted to shout. He’ll only let you down. He sat next to Hertz and saw the beard bobbing as the shuttle reached the landing port.
“Don’t do it, lad.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t do it,” Hertz repeated, his broad accent managing to keep quiet. “Just ride it out. You’ll get there in the end.”
Whatever, thought Cavs. Hertz is just the admiral’s sidekick. As bad as him. But he held his tongue anyway and listened as Loreto waxed lyrical. The rest had done nothing for the bags under the admiral’s eyes, black holes, sucking in the man’s strength and altering his very existence.
Cele had never visited Inca, he heard her explain. Cavs hadn’t either but he’d heard the stories: a criminal colony which contributed nothing but crime and sedition. How bad can it be? he thought. I grew up in the slums of Mars. Bet these kids have barely ever seen a barfight, much less been in one.
As the shuttle made its final approach, he listened to Loreto explain how Inca was a victim of the Federation’s obsession with Earth. In every colony, the humans brought with them flora and fauna and architecture and culture and language and everything else exactly as they’d had it at home. Terraforming was not just the process of altering the atmosphere, but of making the new planet more and more like their old home.
For the first settlers, this allowed them to eat the same foods and consume the same Senate-approved media which was broadcast between all the systems. All their little luxuries. But really, this was an attempt to foster an idea of ‘greater humanity’, of a species which reached beyond its exhausted home world.
Even the naming of the colonies attempted to thrust upon new planets an idea of the old. Calling a new place Olmec or Inca or Sparta or Breton or Yuan or Silla or Nok, it was an attempt to remind inhabitants that their new home was just like the first one. Part of the same ancient continuum, working for the betterment of humanity.
Most of the time, this worked
well. People lived their lives on colonies which ended up as a forced facsimile of the nostalgic dream of what Earth once was. But occasionally, it went wrong. On Sparta, for example, the people began to believe their own myth. They wanted to break free from the yoke of the Federation and strike out on their own. On Inca, they’d simply stopped believing it at all.
Of all the places in the galaxy, Loreto told Cele, Inca was the least like Earth and the most similar, all at once. It was the furthest from the synthetic pastiche colonies created by the Federation and the closest to the back alleys of Providence. Inca was where the people had stopped trusting in the dream of the Federation.
For Loreto, it felt like hell and like home at exactly the same time. He hated the place, he loved it. The shuttle hit the landing pad and the admiral clucked his tongue, saddened that he had missed his chance to tell stories from his rookie days, when he’d spent time undercover working for Sala Pym’s rivals
As he spoke, Cavs remembered why he’d transferred to the Vela in the first place. The admiral had a unique way of conceptualizing the universe. It made him a hell of a leader, but this only made his sadness and his pain more acute. Loreto, he was beginning to think, was simply a shadow of his own legend. Even in moments like this, he was all words and no action.
Despite his anger, Cavs could not help but feel a swell of excitement. He was in the landing party now, visiting far-flung exotic locations, fighting a life or death war against an alien race. This was exactly what he’d signed up for, the very reason he’d taken the oath and sworn to protect humanity. I wouldn’t be human, he assured himself, if I didn’t feel excited. But he wasn’t happy.
The green light in the shuttle lit up. With a hiss of steam and a creak of grinding metal, the doors opened. Loreto already had his restraints undone and was first down the ramp without a word.
“Probably going to check out the vices,” Cavs tried to joke.
No one responded.
“Admiral Loreto is going to try and use a local comms system to record a message for the Senate,” Hertz announced to everyone left in the shuttle. “I want most of you to stay here. Chavez, you take a few people and go drop off the prisoners and then check out the supply prices. Fuel and food. What? I don’t know, you pick them.”
Cavs listened to the crew preparing themselves. Like Loreto, they seemed to be avoiding his eye. They’ve picked their side. He adjusted his uniform and began to walk down the ramp into a searing bright dawn. After everything he’d heard, he had expected it to be dark. Already, his eyes ached and he raised a hand to cover them.
“Yeah, boy.” Hertz came down the ramp behind him, tapping a finger against his ear and unfurling a sunshade. “You keep squinting. Sun never sets on Inca.”
Hertz strode forward, unbothered by the sheerness of the day. Cavs could see the man’s feet so he followed, still blinking. All he could see was the filthy ground. Corrugated iron hatchings rattled as they walked from the port and his nostrils billowed and filled themselves with miserable fullness of life.
Even if he couldn’t see, Cavs knew he was smelling people. Too many people, crammed together and not caring. It smelled just like the streets of Mars. They reached the shade and his eyes began to adjust. In the distance, he saw buildings. He made out their slender crooked shapes. Houses built on houses built on houses, like cancerous cells bursting out of a dying bone. As they walked closer, he saw the thick wires strung between them, knotting the structures together.
Hertz led them into the city, explaining that Inca was a tiny planet, close to binary dwarf stars. The only city was at the pole and suffered from near constant sunlight. As they approached, the buildings rose up before them and Cavs could just about see all the colors, plastered over every surface.
The houses, shops, bars, and everything else, they were all coated in flags of every color. They fluttered in the wind anywhere they weren’t pinned down and pulled taut over any flat surface. Everywhere he looked, Cavs saw people. They bustled through the streets, hitting against his shoulder. They leaned in doorways, trying to tempt him in under neon signs. They flashed skin at him and then sneered at his military uniform. He felt a sprinkle of rain against his neck and looked up to see old women leaning out of their homes, soaking the flags in water.
This was not the bustle and organized uniformity of life on the Vela. These were tattered people. Smirking like knives, everyone jingling and frayed. Shouting, crying, whispering, screaming, all just trying to live on a planet the Senate loathed.
As they plunged deeper into the ants’ nest of the city, the tower blocks rose around them. The light was blotted out but the flags down here had not faded. They kept their colors. There’s too much to take in, Cavs told himself. Trying to document the details left him overwhelmed. It all felt so dry. So brittle and dangerous and dry. As though a single spark would be enough to set the whole thing on fire and burn it to the ground.
“That’s what the flags are for,” Hertz boomed as he led them deeper. “They got plenty of oceans on Inca, so they pump the water up here and they keep all the flags they loot soaking wet. Otherwise, they wouldn’t last a day.”
Cavs stepped over an open sewer which slit the street in two and wiped more water from his neck. He didn’t know whether to believe the captain.
Hertz led them farther and farther. Five of them: the captain himself, Cavs, Cele, Menels, and a kid he’d never talked to called Pyter.
“Where are we going?” Cavs dared to open his mouth. Inca tasted awful.
“The admiral”—Hertz pushed through the crowd like a plough, creating space for the others—“told us to ask around. To put our ears to the proverbial ground and find out what sticks to our faces.”
Cavs looked at the filthy ground and shuddered.
“In other words,” Hertz continued, “I think it’s time we got a drink.”
They had arrived at a dive bar. A line wormed its way out from an archway entrance. Hertz led them toward it. Cavs only knew it was a drinking establishment thanks to the particularly virulent taste to the air. An unseen person vomited in an alley. The sound carried.
“It’s loud,” Cavs shouted. “How are we supposed to find Sala Pym in there?”
“It’s her bar,” Hertz shouted back. “Relax. We never go looking for trouble.”
Cavs felt the vicious eyes of the clientele eyeing up his uniform.
“Trouble finds us,” Hertz laughed with his whole barrel chest.
The captain barged his way to the front of the line. He was a big man but Cavs had never seen him throw his weight around before. As they moved along the line, their uniforms brought jeers and taunts. They didn’t care for the Federation on Inca, Cavs could tell. They couldn’t tell him anything he wasn’t thinking already.
He bumped into the back of Hertz, who had pulled up in front of a security guard. The man was huge, his bald head gleaming under the neon lights. A glistening silver chain began on one ear, looped up over his jowls, through his septum, down his cheek and up to the other ear. The links jingled as he spoke.
“No chance,” he boomed and clinked. “Not dressed like that.”
“I think we are,” said Hertz.
Cavs flexed his fists. He’d been in enough bars to know what happened next.
“No feds.” The bouncer shook his head. A twinkle of a smile emerged. “Who do you think you are?”
He’s actually relishing the fight, Cavs thought and set his feet. Hertz pointed to the insignia on his arm.
“You know exactly who, my friend. See that? That ain’t just Fleet. That’s the Fleet of Richard ‘Red Hand’ Loreto. You know what that means.”
A change washed over the man like a tide and left behind only doubt and worry on his face.
“Red Hand, did you say?” And his giant shoulders shook as he laughed.
Nervously, Cavs noticed. They might not respect the Federation or the Fleet, but they respected Loreto.
“Aye,” said Hertz and it was enough. The bouncer st
epped aside and they entered.
Ducking through, they found themselves at the top of a cavernous den. A thin and crowded staircase ran around the circular room down to the floor and the walls were covered in the battle flags of the various Fleets, each five meters by two. As they descended, Cavs picked out the unit crests. The music blared. People danced and a long bar sat beneath the stairs on one side of the room while tables were arranged around the edges.
“I can see people taking drugs,” Cele shouted. “Dust. Basa. Sticks. Everything.”
Cavs saw it too, people pressing the plastic devices up against their arms or fumbling powders up their noses until their eyes rolled back in their heads. Drinks slopped everywhere. He had to peel his feet off the plastic floor.
“They’re taking Fletcher’s defeat badly,” he shouted.
“No,” Hertz boomed back, his beard already wet with sweat. “That’s just how this place is. I’d be more worried if they were sober.”
So the Senate’s doing a good job of keeping the alien invasion on lockdown, Cavs realized. No broadcasts were slipping through the trace gates without warning. Except for one, he added. Whoever hired those scavengers.
They hadn’t slipped in unnoticed. Their uniforms commanded no reverence or fear or respect. Not even for Loreto, Cavs noticed. Shouts came from the back of the crowd about Red Hand. They hated him, it seemed, even if they were scared of his reputation.
Hertz found them a table, moving aside a man lost in a drugged-out daze, ordering Cele to take him to the corner of the room and prop him up with a water while he went to the bar.
“There’ll be twice as much for us,” Hertz said as he left.
Cavs sat, staring in openmouthed awe. Sala Pym’s bar was a fascinating hellhole but the others didn’t seem fazed. Then he spotted a familiar face.
“Hey,” he said, tapping on Menels’s arm. “Look! It’s Loreto!”
The admiral stalked around the edge of the room, trying to remain unseen. He was failing. People stepped aside and heckled him as he passed. They threw whatever they could find. The missiles clanged off the flag-covered wall and Loreto didn’t flinch. And he wasn’t alone, Cavs noticed. A woman walked ahead of him, just enough that she wouldn’t come under fire.